


you are the hawk

by against_stars



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: (in a background way), Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mage Rights, Non-Chronological, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 19:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/against_stars/pseuds/against_stars
Summary: You are five, you are fourteen, you are twenty-one, you are twenty-five. You are an apostate's daughter, you are a big sister, you are a warrior, you are a protector. You are, Maker forgive you, only human.(brief glimpses of Marian Hawke's life, mainly before Kirkwall)





	you are the hawk

**Author's Note:**

> written self-indulgently because I love headcanon and I love thinking about my aggressive pro-mage Hawke growing up fiercely loving her family

**You are 24.**  Carver is tall and eighteen and a grown man by most respects and still your baby brother in all others, he lifts his sword, he snarls at the ogre that towers over him and your mother, he charges, and the ogre catches him easily, slams his suddenly-small body to the rocky ground with a deafening roar. You can't move, your sword is frozen in your hand, Carver's head is all bloody, his ribs crumpled, his eyes wide and unblinking and your mother is screaming. The ogre is turning, you can't move, it lowers its head, horns pointed straight at you, your baby sister is rushing in front of you, magic sparking at her fingers and over her staff, she looks so fragile now with her own twin a wreck of limbs in the dirt, and you can move again, your gloved hand bruising-hard in her side as you shove her away,  
  
_not her too_  
  
Then the ogre is dead, your sword is covered in its black ichor-blood, and your mother is still screaming Carver's name. He doesn't answer. Your home is in flames on the horizon behind you, and the back of your baby brother's head is caved in, and your mother is sobbing, and your baby sister is stiff with terror and grief. There are strangers muttering prayers to a god you never believed in, your sword is loose in your numb fingers, and  
  
_this is your fault_  
  
What kind of sister are you? It's your job to keep them safe. Keep them safe, Mary-bear, keep them safe for Father. Mother's voice like glass shards in your ears,  
  
_How could you let him run off like that?_  
  
How could you? How could you let this happen, Marian?

—

 **You are 14.**  There's a Templar at the door, a man all the way from Redcliffe, asking if anyone in the village has seen an apostate,  
  
_very dangerous,_ he assures you soberly, while Mother continues to chop carrots and nods with a tense frown,  _a few years older than you, dear, blond hair, tall,_  
  
and you're good enough now not to let the relief show on your face. Couldn't be describing anyone less like Father or Bethany if he tried! Then Bethany comes running from the back room, snowflakes dusting off her pink little fingers, bare feet slipping on the carpet,  
  
_Mother! Look what Father taught me!_  
  
and the entire room freezes over as sharply as if she had cast a blizzard from the ceiling. The man with the Blade of Mercy on his armor looks between you and Bethany, her face gone sheet-white, snow still falling from her cupped hands.  
  
In one motion, you snatch the blade from Mother's hand and plunge it into the Templar's exposed throat, wrenching it through with all your strength. Blood bursts in a hot spray over your face, his body collapsing on the floor with a clatter of armor, and Mother scoops Bethany in her arms and dashes to the back of the house.  
  
You wipe the knife on your skirt with steady hands.

**—**

**You are 5.**  The twins are still safe inside Mother's belly, and you lay your head on it to listen, whispering, "Kick!" Mother strokes your hair and hushes you, but you're so _bored_ in the back of the mule cart, hiding in a crate with a canvas over it. You shift closer to Mother, trying to get comfortable when there's so little room between you and her and the only bag of things she took from the house.  
  
_Why did we have to move again?_  
  
Because Father put out the neighbor's barn fire with magic and even if it was nice of him, the Templars won't care, so we have to leave. Never tell anyone about Father's magic, Mary-bear. They'll take him away, and they'll put that mark on his head, and make it so he doesn't love you anymore. They won't ever let him see us again. He'll never meet the babies. He won't laugh or tell stories or kiss you goodnight, so you must keep this secret. You nod solemnly, because Mother sounds so serious every time she says this, and she cups your face in her hands and pulls you close, kisses your nose to make you smile again.  
  
(You see people with the brand on their foreheads in the market sometimes, and you always cling to Father a little harder. Did they have Mary-bears they used to love? Did they have babies who never got to hear them laugh? You want to ask them sometimes, but Mother pulls you away, and Father just looks sad when he stops at their stalls.)

**—**

**You are 24.**  Your little brother is ashes, wrapped carefully in Bethany's kerchief and tucked into the only bag Mother took from Lothering. The dragon-woman sees you to the coastline safely, as she swore, and the amulet she gave you feels like fire against your chest where it rests under your armor, and the ship captain is sneering at the four of you, you three Hawkes and the Vallen woman, his hand extended pointedly. "Kirkwall's a popular place, and space's goin' fast," he says, oil in his hair and his eyes and his voice, gaze skipping past your sweaty face and lingering on Bethany's bare, tense shoulders, "and I dunno if four gold's really enough for all's you. If you had somethin' else…"  
  
For a heartbeat's moment, you wonder how difficult sailing a ship would really be without a captain, and if you could get away with slitting his throat and taking the crew for yourself without a drop of experience, because if he keeps licking his lips you're going to carve them off, and Mother reaches into the folds of her skirt and pulls out a second coin purse. Carver's commission. "Ten sovereigns," she says, voice flat as the plains you crossed to get here.  
  
"Welcome aboard," says the captain, snatching it away. "Hold's the hatch to yer right."  
  
Your head spins a little, your throat clenched dry, and Bethany's hand is hot and stiff in yours.  _He saved us again,_  you hear her murmur, saying aloud the same thought that drifted through your throbbing head.

**—**

**You are 17.**  Bethany's yelling, and you roll out of bed with one hand on your knife, already snarling, before you realize Carver is hooting with laughter, and Bethany is laying on the bed with a nail sticking out of her long braid, pinning it to the post, screeching words you later swear to Mother she did not learn from you. When you've used the hammer to pry the nail out, you hand it to Bethany, who fixes Carver with a blood-curdling glare. Carver goes pale and bolts out into the field, Bethany hot on his heels, and Father is laughing as loud as you are until Mother throws a sock at him and he goes to chase them both down and make them each apologize.

**—**

**You are 15.**  You follow Carver to the Chantry, rough wooden swords in hand, to pester the Templars for training tips and practice. Most of them ignore you, but a couple of the younger ones think it's cute, tell you how admirable you are for wanting to learn to protect people like they do. Carver glows with the praise, but you say nothing, and when you cross your blade with theirs, you wonder how many mages have been run through with them. Someone else's father. Someone else's Bethany.  
  
As you follow their patterns, you make notes of where their own weaknesses are. One of them favors his left side. One of them is still slow with his shield. Another is slow against feints. If they ever come for your family, you'll know how to strike them down.  
  
It will never be  _your_  father. It will never be  _your_  Bethany.

**—**

**You are 21.**  Father's hand is weak and dry in yours, too pale by far, and his rich voice is hoarse and hollow now when he says softly, "Don't cry, Mary-bear. I know you'll look after your mother. Keep the twins safe." There's a horrible rasp in his lungs when he breathes, and the healer Mother contacted through the Collective had only shaken her head and closed her bag of herbs with a sigh when she heard it. It's not fair. It's not  _fair_. Your sword is useless by the door. You would kill to protect your family, you  _have_ killed to protect them, but all your violence can't do a thing to heal the sickness coursing through Father's body, and what good are you? What good is magic, is your sword, is  _anything_?  
  
"You're such a strong girl," he murmurs, and you want to be good and not cry but you can't help it, your vision blurs with tears so suddenly they spill in a flood before you can blink.  
  
_Not strong enough._

_—_

**You are 18.**  Biscuit barrels right into your knees, a potato-shaped lump of skittering paws and sloppy kisses, but he's still a mabari and they're huge even when they're babies, only destined to get bigger, and he knocks you right over. Father got him to be a guard dog, to keep an eye out for Templars when you aren't around, but now he's just a wriggling puppy with his paws on your shoulders, licking over your face and panting. "I think he's chosen Marian," Father laughs, and Bethany claps her hands together with delight. Carver scuffs his toes on the grass, scowling again.  
  
Mother sighs. "I already have three children tracking half the mud in the country through my doorstep, and now a dog?"  
  
"He's a mabari, my dove! They're more than just dogs!"  
  
"Indeed. Is he going to scrub the floors himself?"

**—**

**You are 24.**  Ostagar is a massacre. Monsters snarl on all sides, razor teeth and filthy, twisted blades, screams and roars and blood-curdling hisses, and the royal colors fall — the Warden blue falls — there was supposed to be a flanking charge, and it never comes, and you and Carver grind through the wall of darkspawn with your squad at your backs, even as it presses inexorably against you. One step forward, six steps back, and the men and women around you are dropping at a hideous pace, and Carver is screaming, voice hoarse,  _We have to win!_  as if by will alone he could stop them all.  _We have to keep our families safe!_  
  
You're going to die here. You're both going to die here. All of you, abandoned, alone, you're going to die, and the horde will wash over you like the swell of a black, toxic sea, and Lothering will be swallowed under it. Your body is screaming with exhaustion and adrenaline, blade swinging in wide arcs, knocking down every monster that tries to pass you and reach your brother, but how much longer can you keep this up?  
  
There's a yank on the neck of your armor, pulling you from the path of a hissing arrow, and the captain shouts,  _Retreat! We cannot stand!_  
  
Carver yells wordlessly, and three of the other soldiers knock him to the ground and drag him away, and he fights them as hard as if they were ‘spawn themselves until the captain strikes him sensible across the jaw, and Carver falls silent, tears streaking pale through the filth and sweat of his cheeks under glassy wide eyes, and you hit your knees at his side only long enough to pull him to his own feet.  _You want t'protect yer family?_  the captain yells, while the surviving handful of the standard hauls backward,  _Go get 'em safe, boy!_  
  
He still moves to struggle forward, and you croak,  _if we die here, they'll get Bethany, they'll get Mother,_  and the words seem to strike him through the heart as much as any blade, and with a snarl, he turns his back on the horde and follows you all out.

**—**

**You are 25.**  For a month underground, your breath comes hard through the damp cloth tied around your face, the sharp green smell of elfroot in your nose, kept there to keep the darkspawn blood from splashing into your mouth and tainting you. The monsters around you snarl and screech and spit venom, blighted flesh stretched tight over misshapen bones, rusted metal twisting around their limbs in a mockery of armor. Even when the tunnel around you is clear, you think you can feel them, their poison clawing at you from the pressing walls and low ceiling, and you understand Anders' hatred of the place with an acidic certainty.  
  
With the thaig door locked behind you, there's no choice but to move forward and hope for an escape somewhere in the void-black warrens of darkspawn, and you think  
  
_Maker_  
  
_at least Bethany is safe at home._  
  
Then you drag your sore body to Lowtown, and Gamlen's door is open, and Templars have trespassed upon your home, and Bethany looks as small and fragile trapped between them as she did when she tried to stand between you and that ogre. Their armor is silver and gleaming, their faces clean and serious, and they are more monstrous than the mindless creatures you just slaughtered your way through. You reach for the hilt of your sword, muscles screaming in exhaustion even as you do, and hiss  
  
_Over my dead body!_  
  
Bethany's voice is the only thing that stops your advance, and she says  
  
_Please, sister. Don't make it worse_  
  
with empty surrender in her eyes. As if there could be anything worse than letting them take her. It's a war, between obeying your sister because you would do anything, anything she asked of you, and pulling out your sword and driving it between the Knight-Captain's eyes, because you have long prepared for the moment you would die to protect her. Biscuit is growling low in his throat, ears flat against his skull, teeth bared at the intruders laying hands on one of his people. All you have to do is give her a moment to escape. All you have to do is distract them long enough to let her run.  
  
The moment passes, sickeningly slow and heartbeat-fast. Mother sobs. The Knight-Captain tightens his hateful grip on Bethany's slim shoulder, and leads her out of the hovel. They take her away. How could you let this happen, Marian? You failed her, just like you failed Carver, and you failed Father. Not strong enough, again. Not fast enough  
  
_Not enough._

**—**

**You are 24.**  A coin purse sails across the room and lands with a surprisingly loud clatter on the kitchen table, the king's seal burned into the leather, and Carver is standing in the doorway with his head lifted as if in pride, while his jaw clenches and arms cross stiff in defiance. Recruiters for the royal army have been passing through, making noises about Blight and battle, and you haven't had a scrap of interest, but it seems Carver has been swayed by the promise of glory and honor. Neither of you have fought worse than bandits on the road, and he thinks he can follow the king into war?  
  
Mother, near hysterics, knocks the coin purse off the table and begs him to take it back, tell the officers he changed his mind, he won't go. "Tell them you have to stay for your  _family_ , Carver."  
  
"This  _is_ for my family," Carver says shortly, mulish and stubborn, bitter with pride and years of bruising at the perimeter you keep around Bethany for safety. Where you see a wall, tall and guarded to keep anything from harming your family, Carver sees nothing but a cage, and you have never understood why he thinks there's anything in the world worth bothering with beyond it. "The king says there's darkspawn coming, and I'm going to fight them before they get here."  
  
Desperately, Mother turns to you. "Marian, you can't let him do this!" and Carver huffs, snaps, "Marian can't tell me what to do, I'm a grown man," and Mother covers her face with her hands.  
  
Anything you say, Carver will go and do the opposite, just to spite you, so in a moment of reckless optimism, you say, "I'll keep an eye on him, Mother," thinking he will twist a scowl and change his mind, but he throws a second coin purse on the table beside his own and says, "Knew you'd say that, sister. There's your commission. We leave for field training in two weeks."  
  
Before you set out, armed and armored, you give Bethany a hug and kiss Mother on the tear-streaked cheek. "Don't worry, Mother. The captain says Grey Wardens will be there, and we're just infantry. We won't even be close enough to see any darkspawn before it's over, and Carver will complain about it when we get home."

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out with me [on tumblr](http://against-stars.tumblr.com), it's mostly Dragon Age and me rambling or doodling my silly OCs.


End file.
